Enea Toldo’s work in the salon is an intoxicating mix of earth, jute and fire. He invests the subterranean space with a desire to use what the ground gives him to put it right before our eyes. This body of work brings with it the idea that, although it exists only briefly, each thought, each creation, has the importance of the whole. The artist invites us into a barren undergrowth whose omnipresent, ever-changing, almost shamanic scent is a lantern to guide us through the intricacies of his work.
His practice invokes elemental materials, which are present in all his pieces. The artist sources all his materials himself, from the beaches of Naples to the volcanic soils of Lanzarote. He then paints with natural pigments, which he also harvests, to create paintings whose colours come from the earth and return to it through his gesture.
His figures and abstractions are impregnated with the energy he receives from these materials that have found him. Enea Toldo returns the viewer to the primacy of expression, with paintings that without being cave paintings take up their codes of creation. Medicinal plants also feature in his practice, and he uses the oil or the leaves themselves to infuse the spaces and his works.
The three monumental paintings, both in their presence and in their tangible weight, evoke a ‘Golden Age’ whose absurdity the painter plays on. This moment evoked by Hesiod would be the moment when Eden descended to earth, where everything would abound and all productive activity would become useless. These gardens of the Hesperides have of course collapsed, and Enea Toldo questions us what can be created with the ruins.